Restrictive Covenants

What are restrictive covenants in your HOA?

Generally, restrictive covenants in a given HOA are designed to protect quality of life and property values for all homeowners by ensuring properties are well-maintained and attractive, and that occupancy and use reflect community standards.

Items covered by restrictive covenants often include but are not limited to the following:

• Minimum setback lines
• Home size and placement
• Architectural guidelines (e.g., construction materials, styles, and colors)
• Fence height and type
• Property use 
• Animals allowed 
• Flagpole height and flag size
• Signage
• Landscaping and maintenance
• Outbuildings
• Swimming pools
• Number and type of vehicles allowed
• Number of occupants

Why are restrictive covenants important?

Restrictive covenants impact people’s lives both in what they require and what they disallow, in what they cost and what they preserve. Rooftop solar collectors might be a source of green pride in one neighborhood and an unbearable eyesore in another (depending on the placement). One neighborhood may find backyard chickens charming, while another community simply considers them a nuisance. Six students sharing expenses in a large house might consider themselves thrifty while their neighbors resent the vehicle-marred driveway and curbside appeal that contrasts with their own. An above-ground pool that is summertime magic for one family is an eyesore and a health hazard to others. Even mandated mowing frequencies pit someone’s benefit against someone else’s cost.

How can you use “restrictive covenants” in a sentence?

Restrictive covenants always represent tradeoffs, but such community standards are widely seen as more beneficial than their absence.